Abstract

This research takes users who use online travel platforms among tourists to Guangxi as the research object  and studies the main factors affecting local tourists' intention to use online tourism platforms. Combining the theories of perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived entertainment, opinion leader, herd mentality, and the characteristics of online tourism platforms, an influencing factor model of local tourists' intention to use online tourism platforms was established. Five hundred twelve valid questionnaires were collected through a questionnaire survey, and SPSS24.0 data analysis software was used for data analysis.

This research uses age, gender, and income as control variables. The results show that perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, perceived entertainment, opinion leaders, and herd mentality have a direct and positive impact on local tourists' intention to use online travel platforms. The most critical factor affecting local tourists' intention to use online travel platforms is perceived entertainment (β=0.194); Herd mentality (β=0.138) has a more significant impact on local tourists' intention to use online travel platforms than opinion leaders（ β=0.129). Given the above research conclusions, this paper proposes two ideas of "focusing on perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived entertainment" and "extensive use of opinion leaders and herd mentality" to improve tourists' intention to use online travel platforms, hoping to provide reference for decision makers of online travel platforms and government tourism departments.

Keywords: Online travel platform, intention to use, Factors affecting.